1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of computer networks, and in particular to a system and method that facilitates an analysis of traffic patterns among sites on a network.
2. Description of Related Art
Path analysis, or traffic analysis, is a necessary tool for effective web-site management and on-going web-site development, as well as for the development of effective marketing strategies. Web-site managers, hereinafter webmasters, desire information that can be used to enhance the web-site's performance or appearance. Electronic-commerce marketing managers, hereinafter marketers, desire information that can be used to enhance the sales resulting from visits to a web-site, to enhance advertising revenue from the web-site, and/or to determine the effectiveness of advertising expenses to other web-site providers.
Tools are commonly available for collecting traffic data. A fundamental tool, for example, collects data regarding the number of times each page at a web site is accessed within a given period of time (e.g. ‘hit-rate’ statistics). A more sophisticated tool, such as the Netflame™ product from Fireclick, Inc., collects data regarding entries to and exits from each page at a web site. By tracking visitors' paths through the website, a Netflame™-enabled web-site can be configured to anticipate a next-page that a visitor is likely to visit, and can initiate a download of some or all of the anticipated next-page while the visitor is viewing the current page. In this manner, the performance of the web-site is significantly enhanced, because, from the visitor's perspective, the anticipated next-page appears to download instantaneously. Only if the visitor chooses an unanticipated next-page will the visitor experience the true download delay duration.
Copending U.S. patent application “PREDICTIVE PRE-DOWNLOAD USING NORMALIZED NETWORK OBJECT IDENTIFIERS”, Ser. No. 09/734,910, filed 11 Dec. 2000 discloses a preferred technique for determining and downloading the anticipated next-page. Of particular note, this copending application also discloses the concept of a “normalized” web-page, wherein alternative versions of a web-page are analyzed and processed as a single web-page. That is, alternative versions of a web-page may include an element that varies, depending upon the environment, the particular viewer, the class of viewer, a currently advertised special, and so on. Each version may potentially correspond to a different web-page, because each version may have a different URL (Uniform Resource Locator). If processed and analyzed separately, the individual statistics that are associated with each of the different versions of a web-page would generally be meaningless. A normalized web-page comprises all of the non-varying elements of the alternative versions, and the data collected corresponding to each of the alternative versions is associated with the normalized web-page. In this manner, statistics are provided for the web-page, independent of variables associated with the web-page. For ease of reference and understanding, the term web-page as used herein includes a normalized web-page, and other collections of pages, files, and data that form a cohesive entity for traffic-analysis reporting purposes. For example, copending U.S. patent application “PREDICTIVE PREDOWNLOAD OF TEMPLATES WITH DELTA ENCODING, Ser. No. 10/079,932, filed 19 Feb. 2002 discloses the use of “templates” that correspond to the relatively unchanging portions of a web-page, and “delta-encoding” to encode the portions of a web-page that change. As defined herein, the templates with multiple and varied delta-encodings correspond to a web-page. Other examples of collections of material forming a cohesive entity for traffic-analysis will be evident to one of ordinary skill in the art.
A marketable traffic-analysis product includes one or more tools for providing reports that are based on the collected traffic-pattern data. A web-page typically includes a number of links to other web-pages, and the choice of which links to include on a web-page can significantly affect the effectiveness of the web-page. From a marketing perspective, for example, the links should be structured to encourage a visitor to progress through the web-site to learn enough about the product or products being offered so as to encourage a purchase. A poorly designed web-page is often characterized by an abnormally high rate of exits from the web-site immediately after visiting the page, whereas a well-designed web-page is characterized by a high proportion of traversals to the appropriate next-page in the aforementioned desired progression through the web-site. By providing path analysis data related to traversals to and from each web-page, the effectiveness of existing web-pages, or the effectiveness of changes to existing web-pages, can be evaluated.
The information provided by path analysis tools is useful, but access to the information is somewhat cumbersome. Typically, a user types in or selects a URL corresponding to the web-page of interest, and the analysis tool presents the information corresponding to the selected or specified URL. The aforementioned Netflame™ product, presents a graph that displays interconnected pages of a web site, and allows a user to click on a node of the graph to display analysis information related to the selected page. Although this product allows a user to associate an ‘alias’ name to each web-page, to display more meaningful names in the report of traversals between web-pages, there is an inherent disassociation between a name of a web-page and the actual web-page. In like manner, there is an inherent disassociation between selecting a web-page by name, compared to actually navigating through the web-site to arrive at the different pages of the web-site.